From Ms. Vicki, adult volunteer monitor:
Box 1 has a completed house sparrow in it with 5 eggs.  What a messy housekeeper!
Box 2 now has a few sticks in it--maybe another house sparrow or maybe a wren from the Sigma Nu nests.
Box 3 still has an active tree swallow nest with 5 pinkish white eggs.  Mom and Dad are really guarding their eggs closely, Mom watching us from the electric wire above and Dad dive bombing us as we looked.
Box 4 has another house sparrow nest being built on top of the original tree swallow nest.  We spied the sparrow flying from the box.
Box 5 has a thriving ant colony.
Box 6:  Our four beautiful tree swallow eggs are gone, and most of the feathers have disappeared.  As science detectives, we observed that there were no egg shells around the nest.  What could have gotten the eggs?  There is a snake guard, so likely not that (but still possible).  There are no overhanging branches and with the Noel guard around the hole, it is unlikely a quarrel, raccoon or cat could have reached into the nest.  With house sparrow so abundant around the school and two sparrow nests in other boxes, we think that maybe a house sparrow has kicked the tree swallows out and is preparing to build a nest..   Three nests with house sparrows--not good!

From Ms. Vicki, Bird Club Volunteer Monitor:
On Tuesday, May 12, Central 3rd grade students finally saw some action in their nest boxes.  Box #3 had a tree swallow sitting on 5 eggs.  She flew from the nest when we opened the box and continued flying and swooping around us as we viewed the eggs and checked the temperatures.  Box #6 also had a tree swallow sitting on 3 eggs.  She flew from her nest, but was not nearly as agitated as the bird in Box #3; she is probably not finished laying her eggs yet.  The tree swallow nests are beautiful with their big white and black feathers, and the eggs are so tiny!

Boxes #1 and 4 both had house sparrows building nests in the boxes.  Their nests are not as pretty as the swallows' and definitely messier.  Although house sparrows are an invasive species and should not be taking up space in our nest boxes, we will leave them there for a while so we can compare nests and eggs, since so many of our boxes are empty.  We also looked at a hummingbird nest which had blown out of a tree.  It was tiny and so soft inside!

Box # 5 has a history of wasps trying to build nests in it, but now it has an invasion of ants!  Nesting birds do not seem to mind ants (perhaps they eat them?), so we will just leave them alone for now, hoping a bird moves in soon--but not another house sparrow!

There has been more nest building activity in Box 6, but all the others are still empty.  Birds are using dried grass for the next; we're predicting the birds are either bluebirds or tree swallows.  Maybe next week the nest will be done and we'll know for sure! Below are some photos from a follow-up visit on Saturday, May 2 by Miss Sarah.

No nests yet -- but we saw some promising signs.  First, we saw at least a dozen tree swallows flying around, especially near Box 1.  The birds flew over our heads and even flew toward us.  We wondered if they were catching flying insects with their mouths.  As we left Box 1, we even saw a swallow land on the box.  We also saw a pair of swallows sitting on top of Box 4; they seemed very interested in each other and the nest box.  We also found one piece of dried grass in Box 6 that had not been there last week: was this a sign of nest building?  

Prediction: based on what we saw, there will be tree swallow nests in some of the boxes soon!

Third graders from the classes of Ms. Henson and Ms. Roig checked the boxes on Thursday, April 16 with Rockbridge Bird Club helpers and Boxerwood.  One of the six boxes was swollen shut and the others were still empty.  We did find one wasp in box 5, though.  We saw and heard birds in the schoolyard.